Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Executive Systems Problem Oriented Language

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge‎ to Burroughs Large Systems#ESPOL and NEWP. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:04, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Executive Systems Problem Oriented Language

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Fails WP: GNG. I could not find sufficient sourcing to establish notability. HyperAccelerated (talk) 22:45, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: This was dePRODed because someone baselessly claimed that the subject is notable. Remember that sourcing guides notability -- we do not have sources in the article to show this. HyperAccelerated (talk) 22:45, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 23:16, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 05:22, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and redirect to Burroughs Large Systems#ESPOL and NEWP. Article is so stubby that the entirety can fit comfortably in the target article without running into WP:WEIGHT issues. DigitalIceAge (talk) 07:59, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge into, and redirect to, another related article. Burroughs Large Systems#ESPOL and NEWP is an excellent choice. Remember when sourcing, that in the 1960s and 1970s, the community using a given processor architecture was often smaller than the number of posts in many subreddits. Many interesting, even important systems were poorly or not documented in publicly available sources. ESPOL may be too small a topic for a dedicated Wikipedia article, given current article requirements, but the ESPOL material should not be deleted. Let's try to avoid another needless harmful article deletion. Jerryobject (talk) 23:25, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I managed to find quite a few sources (1, 2, 3, 4) that cover ESPOL in depth, including a newly written scholarly book (The Burroughs Corporation and Its Innovative Architecture, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022) but only by searching "ESPOL" and "Burroughs" in tandem. Searching for "Executive Systems Problem Oriented Language" verbatim brings up very little. I guess the full name was too much of a mouthful for people to bother retyping? DigitalIceAge (talk) 02:09, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: I could not find the policy or guideline for "fit comfortably". However, three ESPOL Reference Manuals does fit nicely under Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#NOTMANUAL (redirect policy to "Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal") that should be a consideration upon closing. -- Otr500 (talk) 00:55, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I could not find the policy or guideline for "fit comfortably". It's called WP:ATD-M.

However, three ESPOL Reference Manuals does fit nicely under Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#NOTMANUAL This isn't a manual; it contains no instructions on how to do things. This is a short encyclopedic description of a programming language that can and should be merged into the broader article of Burroughs Large Systems. DigitalIceAge (talk) 01:59, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Searching for references didn't turn up very much: Organick 1973, Kurzban 1975 and Burgeron et al 1972 all have about a paragraph about it (the first two were also found by DigitalIceAce above). There are also in-depth, peer-reviewed but non-independent papers about it from Burroughs staff, and independent but non-reviewed brief mentions in several Masters/PhD theses about systems languages, but being a systems language it didn't get the kind of contemporary coverage that other Algol dialects did. It's notable enough to be worth describing, but merging into (the existing) Burroughs Large Systems#ESPOL and NEWP sounds reasonable unless more in-depth sources turn up. Adam Sampson (talk) 21:19, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Don't Delete or Merge: While ESPOL was replaced by NEWP (which also should not be deleted), ESPOL was the first high-level language used to exclusively develop system software and an OS in 1961. This is a very significant event in computing. The evolution from ESPOL to NEWP is also of significant interest to people doing language and OS research and for the history. Ian.joyner (talk) 22:41, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Ian.joyner has been indefinitely blocked for violating Wikipedia's policies on harassment. HyperAccelerated (talk) 21:36, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.